Travellers facing whopping credit card bills from summer holiday spending should aim to pay off their holiday debt before they get out the shorts and suncream again next year.

According to the UK Cards Association, £6.5 billion of cash withdrawals were made abroad last year on credit and debit cards with £21.6 billion of spending on 415 million purchases.

But there is no need to let this debt sit accruing interest.

A taste of paradise: £6.5 billion of cash withdrawals were made abroad last year on credit and debit cards

Borrowers have some of the longest
interest-free periods to pay off what they owe, with Barclaycard,
Halifax, NatWest, HSBC and Tesco Bank all offering 0 per cent for up to
23 months on balance transfers. But you do need to be very wary of the
fees.

TheBarclays
Platinum Visaoffers 23 months interest-free on balance transfers with a
2.8 per cent fee — so transferring £1,500 of spending would cost £42.
To clear the debt over the 23 months would cost £66 a month.

Customers
pay 0 per cent on balance transfers for 16 months and a fee of 1.5 per
cent, when more than £1,500 is transferred before November 16.

But with all these deals, you need to put the card away in a drawer once the balance has been transferred.

New
purchases are typically charged at 17.9 per cent, and under rules
introduced in January 2011, credit card firms must use any repayments to
pay off the most expensive debt first.

This means repayments will be
used to pay off new spending rather than your balance transfer,
potentially leaving you with an outstanding balance at the end of the
interest-free period.

If
you can’t pay off the balance in the interest-free period, then a
low-cost card could be a better option. Sainsbury’s Bank’s Low Rate
Credit Card charges 6.9 per cent and has no balance transfer fee.